Manchester City midfielder Fernandinho has stated that he was shocked at how awful Manchester United were in the last derby, Mirror reports.

The Citizens thrashed their neighboring rivals 4-1 at the Etihad Stadium last September, a score-line the Brazilian doesn’t believe will happen again as easily.

Fernandinho was a £30million signing from Shakhtar Donetsk last summer and going into the first derby against champions United, he expected them to put up much more of a fight.

However Fernandinho has promised that the Sky Blues will attempt to cut through United once again at Old Trafford tonight.

“It was the first time I’d played them after joining City,” he said.

“United are a club with history, with very good players and they were the champions. So I was surprised at how badly they played, how easily we won.

“The situation is different now, because we’re fighting for the title and they’re not. They’re just fighting for honour now. But a derby is the same whichever country you are in – each team wants to win.

“We’ll go there expecting to win, but we know in a derby a lot of things can happen. We’ll be ready for it and have to play well because it’s a very important game for us.”

Fans and critics watching Manchester United will point to their weakness in midfield, with City’s far superior.

Yaya Toure has 20 goals for the Citizens this term – Fernandinho with four – while Manchester’s top midfield goalscorers are Michael Carrick and Tom Cleverley – with only one goal each.

And Manchester United boss David Moyes has pointed to City’s midfield scoring threat, which could provide the derby match-winner.

“They have goalscoring midfield players and it’s important to have goalscorers all over the field,” he said.

“That contributes a lot to your goals. But we’ve got good midfielders. We still think Marouane Fellaini can get goals and he was unlucky on Saturday against West Ham.

“He should have scored with a header and then you could argue it was a penalty with the one where he went through. So I think he’s beginning to show signs he can get some goals for us as well.

“But I do agree they’ve got very good midfielders who are goalscorers.”